1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electrical computers and data processing systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for controlling access to multimedia services such as broadcasts, stored files, and/or remote downloads.
2. The Prior State of the Art
Multimedia services are available in a variety of forms. The multimedia service might be broadcast content or xe2x80x9cbroadcast feedxe2x80x9d which may include video information as in a television broadcast, audio-only information as in a radio broadcast, or Internet data as in an Internet multicast. Multimedia services may also include access to resources on a network such as a file stored on the network. This resource might be, for example, a Web page or other file remotely stored on a Local Area Network (LAN) or on a Wide Area Network (WAN) such as the Internet.
In the case of broadcast content, many modern systems receive and process broadcast content using a device containing a microprocessor before the broadcast content is presented to the user. Such devices, which include able television set-top boxes, digital satellite television receivers, and personal computers equipped with broadcast receiver hardware, are commonly referred to as Integrated Receiver/Decoders or xe2x80x9cIRDsxe2x80x9d.
In such systems, it is common to have the IRD device control which components of the broadcast feed are appropriate for presentation to the user. For example, a broadcast data provider, such as a television or radio broadcaster, may have a right to condition access to certain broadcast content on the satisfaction of certain conditions. For instance, a pay-per-view provider may condition access on a user calling the provider and paying a fee by credit card or upon the debiting of a smart card. Furthermore, a premium channel provider may condition access upon the user subscribing to the premium channel. The IRD device enforces such conditional access to broadcast content on a client-by-client basis at the receiver end of a broadcast network. The hardware or software component in the IRD that ensures that the broadcast segment is not presented unless these conditions are satisfied is called a xe2x80x9cconditional access provider.xe2x80x9d Once the conditions for access have been satisfied, the conditional access provider permits the relevant broadcast content segment to be presented to the user.
It may also be desirable that entities other than the broadcaster control access. For example, parents may wish to control their children""s access to broadcast segments having certain content. A parent might do this by watching a broadcast segment with the child and changing the channel when questionable content is presented.
Unfortunately, parents may not always be able to watch the entire broadcast segment with the child. Some multimedia segments such as television programs include a displayed rating which at least broadly indicates the program""s level of violence, nudity, or other important factors. For example, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rating system is essentially age-based and includes G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17 ratings. Some common age-based ratings for television include TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-G, TV-PG, TV-14 and TV-MA. Also, there may be content-based ratings such as FV (Fantasy Violence), V (Violence), S (Sexual situations or activity), L (course Language), or D (suggestive Dialog).
Typically, the television ratings appear in the corner of the television screen during a brief period at the start of the television program. However, a parent may not be present during the brief time that the ratings are being displayed. Thus, hardware or software modules called xe2x80x9climits providersxe2x80x9d have been developed to help parents set local policy limits on the broadcast segments that are presented to their children. These limits providers help parents set limits independent from any conditional access control desired by the content broadcaster.
Conventional broadcast systems may incorporate more than one conditional access provider. The broadcast system will typically use an interface such as an Application Program Interface or xe2x80x9cAPIxe2x80x9d to utilize the services of each of the conditional access providers. However, an interface that works for one conditional access provider may not work for another. Each additional interface requires further programming in order to deal with the additional interface. Thus, what is desired is a broadcast system and method that interfaces with conditional access providers in a more standardized fashion.
A multimedia system is described that is capable of presenting multimedia segments including television broadcasts, radio broadcasts, stored video, stored audio, and/or Internet data. The multimedia system includes a common standardized conditional access manager that interfaces the multimedia system with a number of conditional access providers. These conditional access providers may be software and/or hardware modules that enable providers of the multimedia segments to condition access to their multimedia segments upon certain conditions. For example, a television broadcaster may condition access to a premium channel or pay-per-view program based upon the payment of a specified sum. The conditional access provider may also be a limits provider, which is a software and/or hardware module that allows parents to restrict access to certain broadcast segments that the parents feel are inappropriate for their children.
In addition, the conditional access manager acts as a standard interface between the conditional access providers and the rest of the multimedia system. Since the interface is standard, the conditional access provider software is not informed of anything about the details of the multimedia system. Furthermore, the multimedia system is not informed of any of the details of the conditional access providers. Thus, the multimedia system and the conditional access providers can interoperate without proprietary information concerning the multimedia system and the conditional access provider being disclosed to each other.
In order to access a multimedia segment, the multimedia system receives a request to access the multimedia segment. For example, a user may request a television program using a remote control, or a user may request a Web page using an Internet browser.
During the process of accessing the multimedia segment, each of the conditional access providers is notified of the request through the conditional access manager. Each conditional access provider then determines whether permission to access the multimedia segment should be denied, or whether the conditional access provider does not know of any reason why permission to access the multimedia segment should be denied. If any of the conditional access providers determines that permission to access the multimedia segment should be denied, the multimedia segment is not presented. On the other hand, if none of the conditional access providers determines that permission to access the multimedia segment should be denied, and at least one of the conditional access providers determines that permission to access the multimedia segment should be granted, the multimedia broadcast segment is presented. If the multimedia segment is presented, but one of the conditional access providers later determines that permission to access should be denied, the presentation of the multimedia segment is then blocked.
Additional advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.